The present invention generally relates to credit card and membership card services and, more particularly, to a system for providing a single card that functions as both a credit card, for gaining access to credit services provided by a primary party, and a membership card, for gaining access to an exclusive membership club administered by a service partner.
In today""s world, there is a wide variety of benefits that are available to a consumer where access to the benefits depends upon the consumer""s possession of a card. For example, some of the benefits, to which a typical consumer may gain access by possessing a card, include proof of identity, proof of professional licensing, entry to an exclusive membership club, entry to an access-restricted location, access to credit services, telephone system use, and accrual of loyalty rewards/incentives such as frequent flier miles or grocery store discounts and rebates. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,924,080, which is hereby incorporated by reference, discloses a system that may enable a consumer to receive discounts without the burden of using coupons, similar to the system currently used by many grocery stores.
Due to the desirability of such benefits, consumers in today""s world typically carry a wide array of cards in their wallets and purses. The cards consumers now carry include, among others, credit cards, driver""s licenses, club membership cards, frequent flier cards, professional registration cards, retailer loyalty cards, and security-related restricted-access cards. Typically, each of these consumer cards contains information about the specific user or consumer, information about the service or benefit provider and information serving to define the benefits or services, to which the consumer is entitled by virtue of his or her possession of the card. The information concerning the card member may include photographs, signatures, fingerprints, and other information that identifies or describes the card member. Information regarding the identity of the service provider and the associated benefits, to which the card member is entitled, may be readily ascertained by reading the face of the card, may be encoded or accessed by using the card. Information may be incorporated onto the cards through a variety of means including imprinting, punching, laminating, embossing, bar encoding, magnetic stripe encoding, and even affixation or incorporation of micro-chips. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,998,753, which is hereby incorporated by reference, discloses a driver""s license formed as a plastic card.
Unfortunately, due to the proliferation of services and benefits currently available from diverse service providers, the quantity of cards that average consumers carry has become unreasonably and unnecessarily burdensome. For example, on a single shopping trip, a typical consumer may carry a drivers license to drive their motor vehicle to the merchant""s location, a membership card to obtain access to the merchant""s exclusive membership club, a calling card to make phone calls during the shopping trip, and a credit card to obtain credit services to facilitate the purchase of goods from the merchant. Yet, it can be cumbersome and uncomfortable to carry all these necessary cards in one""s wallet, pocket or purse.
Thus, it would be advantageous to decrease the volume of cards that a consumer must carry while retaining the consumer""s access to the full array of benefits provided by the diversity of service providers. U.S. Pat. No. 5,590,038, which is hereby incorporated by reference, discloses a universal electronic transaction card that may serve as a credit card, identification card, and medical card. Further, U.S. Pat. No. 5,844,230, which is also hereby incorporated by reference, discloses a card that may contain the information of two credit cards on a single card. While these references attempt to decrease the volume of cards a consumer must carry to access a given set of services, they require, among other elements, multiple sets of embossed information and multiple magnetic stripes.
Simultaneous with this desire to reduce the volume of cards, there is an evident need to increase the information carrying capacity of such consumer cards. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,308,121 and a related patent, U.S. Pat. No. 5,503,434, both of which are hereby incorporated by reference, disclose credit cards that can be unfolded to allow more room for the printing of information. Furthermore, U.S. Pat. No. 4,066,873, which is also hereby incorporated by reference, discloses a banking identification and access card that contains a magnetic stripe and a bar code on the back of the card that can be scanned by a scanning apparatus.
Yet, despite these varied efforts at increasing the utility of consumer cards while decreasing the volume of cards a consumer must carry, no card currently exists that offers the combined benefits of multiple cards without necessitating the incorporation of additional embossed information or magnetic stripes on the associated card. Furthermore, the prior art attempts at reducing the quantity of cards a consumer must carry are typically aimed at modifying the cards, rather than modifying the processes and systems employed by the individual benefit providers, such that the consumer may continue to enjoy benefit from multiple providers. In fact, none of the methods or systems for providing a multiplicity of services through a single card that are known in the art involve substantial administrative cooperation between distinct service providers.
Furthermore, it has become apparent that consumers who seek access to a particular set of benefits from one service provider are more likely to desire access to a second set of benefits from a distinct class of service providers. For example, it stands to reason that consumers who access a membership shopping club are likely to desire credit services during their trip to the club. Therefore, it would be advantageous for providers of distinct services such as credit services and membership club shopping services to cooperate to offer a single card that provides consumers with access to the benefits of the currently separate and distinct cards. By doing so, a primary party provider of credit services and a partnering membership club can encourage use of their respective services while providing a synergistic administrative benefit to themselves and their consumers.
Moreover, the separate cards currently carried by a typical consumer contain a multiplicity of duplicate information such as pictures, signatures, addresses, billing information, etc. Therefore, it would be advantageous to minimize duplication of identical information on multiple cards. It would further be advantageous for the information to be grouped on the different sides of a single card such that a first side of the card provides a first set of benefits while the other side of the card provides access to a separate and distinct set of benefits. Thus, it would be advantageous to have a multiple-service card that functions to provide a consumer with the benefits typically provided by distinct service providers. It would further be advantageous if the multiple-service card did not require multiple card-like elements connected by a hinge or the use of multiple magnetic stripes. It would further be advantageous to have a system and method to facilitate cooperation between separate and distinct providers of card services.
Further, it would be advantageous to have a multiple-service card that functions as both a credit card as well as a separate entity""s membership card. It would also be advantageous for the multiple-service card to feature the customer""s picture on the card""s back side, rather than on its front side. It would also be advantageous to have the picture that is to be placed on the back of the card captured by the service partner and passed to the card generator. It would also be advantageous to have a card that contains a bar code that may be scanned at the point of sale when customers make purchases so that the scanned data may be forwarded directly to the service partner""s systems for reporting and tracking purposes.
The present invention provides a system and method for providing consumers with the benefits of multiple cards while allowing consumers to carry a single card. To accomplish this advantage, the system and method of the present invention enables a single card to function in multiple modes, for example, as both a credit card and a separate service partner""s membership card. By providing a system of back-end functionality that takes advantage of cooperation between the multiple service providers, the present invention eliminates the disadvantages of the prior art systems such as, for example, the requirement to join, through use of a hinge and a fastener, multiple card segments or the requirement to embed multiple magnetic stripes into the consumer""s card.
More particularly, the system of the present invention provides methods for opening new accounts, methods for accomplishing card replacement, methods for canceling a service partner membership, methods for canceling a primary party account, and methods for transferring an account to a different service partner account. The multiple-service card enabled by the present invention may include any combination of membership information, a barcode, and a photo in addition to standard credit card information.